Bicycle: The History

This lively and lavishly illustrated book tells the extraordinary history of the bicycle, an invention that precipitated nothing short of a social revolution. Recounting a story replete with disputed patents, brilliant inventions, and missed opportunities, David Herlihy shows us why the bicycle captured the public’s imagination and the myriad ways it has reshaped our world.
 
“A comprehensive genealogy of the two-wheeled savior of mass transit. . . . Herlihy takes what could have been just another history book and makes it a story worth telling your friends about.”—Publishers Weekly      

"Fun and informative."—Baltimore Sun 

“Immensely absorbing.”—Edward Koren, New York Times Book Review
"Lovingly written and beautifully illustrated."—David Schoonmaker, American Scientist 

“A delight.”—Robert Messenger, Wall Street Journal 
“Herlihy has traced the bicycle’s family tree with a thoroughness reminiscent of Laura Hillenbrand and her thoroughbred, Seabiscuit. . . . Bicycle is a good read for all and a must for the cyclist’s home library.”—Joe Simnacher, Dallas Morning News

"[One of] the best cycling-related books I've seen in the past decade."—Joe Lindsey, Mountain Bike
 
Winner of the 2004 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division Annual Award Competition in the History of Science category

Winner of the Society for the History of Technology’s 2005 Sally Hacker Prize